3 ms·

As seen commented in the other thread, I feel like this metric of 10 bits per second for “thinking” could be wildly incorrect. Firstly I can “think” with my ima

As seen commented in the other thread, I feel like this metric of 10 bits per second for “thinking” could be wildly incorrect. Firstly I can “think” with my imagination – conjure up whole evolving worlds in my minds eye – this would be megabits per second easily if on a display. Secondly, a lot of my “thinking” is done semi-below my conscious radar, in that I set a task, say writing, and my mind chews on it while I do other things – for example if I’m writing an essay or book chapter, I can be mulling it over in the background while cycling or walking and doing other things, and then later sit down and churn it out. I feel like a couple of philosophers need to bang their heads together with the researcher with regards to thinking. It’s way higher than 70 bytes per minute.

AtlasBarfed 2y ago
The subconscious reflex of avoiding an object thrown at your eye is certainly faster than 10 bits per second.
FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
What if those worlds are encoded so efficiently that they can be communicated in only 10 bits/sec? Maybe there's tons of detail but not very much is actually probable, so one part of your mind can "fill in the gaps" without another part "saying" much to it. Like the married couple who have been together so long they don't have to say anything and each still knows what the other means.
- idiomaddict 2y ago
  Please excuse my technological illiteracy. Isn’t that just a form of compression that might reduce the (uhh) space that the image takes up without actually reducing the information processing?
  - FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
    I don't have a great way to think about the distinction between computation and communication. It seems to me that the "bits/s" measure they're using doesn't even have the right units? That said, information seems fundamental and almost physical, whereas something like "FLOPS" feels tied to a general class of implementations. Maybe you can imagine that some part of your mind really doesn't need a very high bitrate description of the world. For example, we read novels and play text-based adventure games, and that's sufficient to conjure a rich inner world. And at what rate do we read? Probably not more than a few bits/s, I would guess? Let's see... Google's AI says > The entropy rate of English is between 0.6 and 1.3 bits per character. Let's just say 1 bit per character for round numbers. It also says, > A typical novel page usually contains around 3,000 characters so, 3 kbits/page. Divide by 10 bits/s, and you get 300 seconds/page = 5 minutes/page. This seems too long to me. I think we read faster than that. And that's ignoring that "a picture is worth a thousand words". So, if there is a single information bottleneck into the "conscious mind", my guess is that it has a higher bitrate than the quoted 10 bits/s.

AtlasBarfed 2y ago

The subconscious reflex of avoiding an object thrown at your eye is certainly faster than 10 bits per second.

FooBarBizBazz 2y ago

What if those worlds are encoded so efficiently that they can be communicated in only 10 bits/sec? Maybe there's tons of detail but not very much is actually probable, so one part of your mind can "fill in the gaps" without another part "saying" much to it. Like the married couple who have been together so long they don't have to say anything and each still knows what the other means.

idiomaddict 2y ago
Please excuse my technological illiteracy. Isn’t that just a form of compression that might reduce the (uhh) space that the image takes up without actually reducing the information processing?
- FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
  I don't have a great way to think about the distinction between computation and communication. It seems to me that the "bits/s" measure they're using doesn't even have the right units? That said, information seems fundamental and almost physical, whereas something like "FLOPS" feels tied to a general class of implementations. Maybe you can imagine that some part of your mind really doesn't need a very high bitrate description of the world. For example, we read novels and play text-based adventure games, and that's sufficient to conjure a rich inner world. And at what rate do we read? Probably not more than a few bits/s, I would guess? Let's see... Google's AI says > The entropy rate of English is between 0.6 and 1.3 bits per character. Let's just say 1 bit per character for round numbers. It also says, > A typical novel page usually contains around 3,000 characters so, 3 kbits/page. Divide by 10 bits/s, and you get 300 seconds/page = 5 minutes/page. This seems too long to me. I think we read faster than that. And that's ignoring that "a picture is worth a thousand words". So, if there is a single information bottleneck into the "conscious mind", my guess is that it has a higher bitrate than the quoted 10 bits/s.